The Curse of True yet Unrequited Love
by Janet-Mufasa
Summary: He had always known a day like this would come. He had hoped that by switching his story he could break free from his curse, but he was wrong. Rotbart plays his part in Apple's story as promised but at the price of his own desires for he has fallen for her. The curse of true but unrequited love was one he was born to die from. It makes one wonder if he was truly evil after all...


I guess, people aren't truly born evil. Well, we can't say that, I mean, psychopaths exist and even as a villain I'd say they're pretty messed up.

What I mean is, whether we like it or not, there is light and dark in all of us, and it truly seems to depend on the way you've been raised that dictates which side you sway to.

I'm a villain, and I'm proud of it. Sure, I like praise and don't go looking for drama every waking hour, but I love the thrill of ruining things and destroying lives. The sicker and more twisted the better, so long as it falls under the category of acceptably evil.

Yes, even villains and wrong doers have a code of conduct. It is unspoken and yet also universal amongst our kind. There is a level at which one is far too evil and becomes a monster, and then there is a level at which one isn't evil enough and has become a poser or a reformed villain/anti hero.

While I've heard switching sides can have multiple benefits, I'm quite comfortable with the way things currently are however and I don't want my reputation to be tarnished and repulsed by my fellow evil... At least that's what I thought.

Sadly, I've come to recently realise, a villain like me was bred to die. Because it's either die, or reform for the better.

My kind, my ancestry...we are the most cruel of all, but at the same time we are romantics. We are lovers. It's is impossible for us to escape the curse of true, and requited love.

I thought I could escape it. I tried running away to another story to see if I could break the chain of broken hearts... But I couldn't, and I can't.

Apple White, truly is the fairest of them all. She can't sing, and she's delusional and irritating, but her heart is in the right place even if misguided by societal brainwashing about destiny and such. For years I've watched her love and live, and for years I've done my part.

As promised, she was sent to live in my home and be a slave to me, as she would have if my sister had followed her own role. I initially took pleasure in her suffering and made her days as harsh as I could, but she would always find a way to be happy through it all.

Soon I lost my pleasure in her suffering because she wasn't suffering at all. At this point, normally, the "evil queen" would turn to jealousy and rage, but the sickly curse of my father's kicked in and instead my heart was reluctantly softened at her courage and persistence and irritating optimism.

My rage and my cruelty that I rained over her was in fact my own desperate denial that I was in love with her. I couldn't let her know, and I didn't want it to be true, but it was too late.

Soon her pitchy walrus voice became amusing more than irritating, and the golden smile on her pale face was a portrait of angels that I would never otherwise be privileged enough to see. My cruel facade began to slip, and I'd tease her, offering her gifts in return to her harsh work conditions, much her her disapproval of course.

I found myself staring at her from my feathered throne, enchanted by her simple beauty, and my black heart fluttered like a sparrow whenever she'd look my way.

What a pitiful fool am I. What sort of villain do I dare to call myself?

I feared that if this continued I'd no longer be able to follow through with my pledge to send her to her death.

And the one night, I snapped, and slipped away into her lowly chambers, she was sleeping and the air was still.

I tried to envision her in a glass coffin, lined with blooming flowers and fallen snow, and I cried. I knelt by her bedside and wept bitterly, knowing soon would come the day I'd need to do it. I'd made my pledge, and I had tried so hard to follow through.

Why would I not just tell her? Why did I not just break my vows and take her for myself?

Well, that's where my first point comes in. Maybe I'm choosing to remain evil because...I'm not truly evil at all.

I wrenched myself away from her and I flew out into the night, unable to contain myself pity. I would deny my heart it's sick and twisted desires because I promise Apple I wouldn't. And I...I wanted to keep that promise. I wanted to make her happy...even if it was without me.

Is there a difference between going "by the book" and "slipping out of character"? Am I not fulfilling my evil duties by having these feelings, or are my evil duties just a rouse to play a part in the flawed system of our parents.

Days passed and I lounged in my room in a depressed and petty funk, unprepared to do more than holler her name from my room to demand more food be brought to me.

And then, just as I was ready to disown myself as evil, it finally happened.

Apple was fetching the water, and singing to the birds as she pleased, I hummed along with her awful voice out of loveblind tolerance, when another voice joined hers.

Some sappy, obnoxiously ...CHARMING baritone interrupted her melody and i thrashed around attempting to free myself from my bedsheets to glare upon the horrific creature that dared to interrupt her.

No...I thought to myself as he began to serenade her...NO!

This couldn't possibly be happening! Apple, my Apple...my princess was being wooed by some cookie cutter, factory made, Generic-Prince-Eric and she was drinking it up like a hummingbird!

No! I couldn't let this happen! He was going to take her away from me and lavish her with meaningless gifts, and bask in the fame and glory of a corrupted story that was in shambles from the day this generation took part in it.

I ran to my mirror and hollered for my mother, the new spirit of the mirror to come forth.

She materialised and I demanded to know who the putrid prince was, for I was in that very moment intent on destroying him.

Pleased with my villainous change of heart, and less disappointed with my foolish romance, she gave to me his name and Kingdom, and showed me his sickly reflection, as he continued to sing his flowery sonnet.

Enraged with a newfound hatred in my soul, and a fire in my belly hotter and brighter than a newborn phoenix, I flew to my dungeons and vowed to dispose of him.

The plan was elaborate, and skilfully plotted out. I had every inch in place, and all the evil spells and curses to last the prissy coward ten lifetimes of woe...

And then Apple just had to waltz in.

I quickly shoved aside the contents of my plotting, and tossed away the papers and books upon the table, as she burst into the room, in a frilly, singing daze.

She fell on my shoulder and embraced me tightly, exclaiming her joy and telling me that her story was finally happening.

That finally I could send her to the woods and attempt to have her killed, just the way I promised I would.

She cooed over the thought of caring for the dwarves, and the animals she would meet on her journey...talks of apple pies, and nights of silly dance, and seven little beds to make and songs to sing.

I looked into her angelic face, and heard the delicate lace that lined her every word, and she beamed at me with an enthusiasm I wish she would bestow upon me more often.

And then she said to me,

"Aren't you hexcited now? You'll get to poison me, just like you promised!"

She kissed my cheek and had the nerve to... to thank me for fulfilling my evil role, before daintily sauntering off with her rags and bucket in tow.

I crumbled and disintegrated inside, my spark having died, and I stared into space. No. I couldn't kill this prince. I couldn't curse him for ten lifetimes and his family and his kingdom as a whole.

I could not keep her to myself...she always wanted to live out her story. It was finally happening now...I couldn't take that away from her.

I loved her too much. My heart lurched and I smashed almost everything in the dungeon out of frustration with myself. So helpless...so devoted...so consumed by my love.

I had foreseen a day like this in my youth, although at that time the princess was a different one. I'd never have made it a year into Swan Lake.

I slowly arose and trudged back to my quarters, feeling as pathetic and stupid as I was.

I sent her away that very day, a different huntsman from the one originally destined, of course, and I sent away my entire heart with her. The castle was empty, and cold, and dank. It was dark, and silent, and sour. Things I used to love, and cherish, like the misery its walls invoked was now something I hated.

In a series of half hearted attempts to 'take her life' I tossed her the corset, and the comb, and even slipped in a few other nasty surprises which amused me partially but soon I could no longer dawdle.

Soon I was forced to finalise my role in her story. In the form of a little owl, I brought to her a basket of berries, and flowers and apples. It was subtle, and not suspicious as she would receive gifts often of this sort.

She plucked the golden apple straight from the top and took the fateful, single bite.

"Oh... I feel so...weak" I heard her say, and my heart stilled nearly with anticipation.

"I think I..." She trailed off and breathed her temporary last as she collapsed to the ground, the wretched object of her undoing tumbling across the wooden floor.

I chided myself for allowing such a pain that filled my otherwise blackened soul, as I forcefully restrained myself from rushing to her aid. But my heart, it ached so terribly and my stomach twisted and churned in disgust at myself as a human being. I wanted to cry. I wanted to howl and scream my self hatred and woe, and cradle her to my side, and tell her I was sorry.

But I was the villain of this story, and I wasn't allowed to care.

I stayed there however, concealed in my shroud of feathers and talons, watching over her tensely from my perch on the window sill. Sooner or later the little dwarves would return and begin to mourn the loss of the princess Apple White.

Years...years had I known this was coming, but at least back then I had underestimated how it would affect me. I was a fool. I had assumed I would be immune.

The funeral was glorious and also humble, for the dwarves were simple folk, although crafty and genuinely caring. Her sunshine hair fell in loose curls over the side of her coffin bed, and fallen petals from the bouquets that surrounded her kissed her face, and clothes.

Her hands encased the most vibrant of them all, white and red roses, pruned of thorns and placed there with care, they reflected her permanent radiance and beauty. I nested by her side, and for whatever reason that was inside me I chose not to leave.

I was, perhaps just mourning her, or maybe I desired to prolong my time with her for as long as I could make it before she was stolen away.

Perhaps I was afraid her prince might flake, and never come...or that perhaps someone else might find her first...suppose her prince came but his love for her wasn't true, and she stayed asleep forever.

That last one maybe even, I was counting on...hoping for almost. That some tiny flaw in the tapestry of fate would allow ME to be the one to wake her up.

Was my love for her true enough? Did I even count?

The pompous prince arrived at last, and resentfully I glared at him, almost praying it didn't work...

But of course...the minute his filthy lips touched hers...her cerulean eyes fluttered open and she lunged into an embrace around him.

Of course...I was an idiot to have overlooked such a thing. True love didn't have to work both ways so long as one of them is truly in love.

It mattered not what the prince truly thought of her. And i bitterly hated myself, and the horrible curse for that fact. I was desperately convinced I could have been better for her. I could love her more, and cherish her and spoil her and kiss her tenderly and elegantly and dance with her for all time...

No. I told myself, this was her choice and this was what she truly wanted. If made a vow, and I would never break it. And so instead I'd break my own heart.

They got up onto his horse and trotted away, and her dainty, song like laughter echoed in my veins. I watched and listened...and watched and listened until there was no more Apple White to watch and listen to any longer.

And then, limply I laid down my head, and closed my eyes, a single tear falling from my feathered face, and began to die.

For all the many months I stayed by her side, not a bite did I eat, nor a drop did I drink. It was only her presence and my love for her that was keeping me alive...and now she was gone.

And so was I.

XxXxX

"Apple, my love, we're nearly there!" Fergus gently tousled his queen awake.

She hummed and then grasped onto him as she rose from her nap on his back. It was the eve of their first anniversary and she had asked her husband, Fergus to bring her to the place at which they shared their kiss of true love, for sentimental reasons.

In the short distance they had left to travel, they spotted the beautiful flowery garden that surrounded the golden and glass coffin. It was wild, but clearly trimmed and pruned, as thought the dwarves still were caring for it even though they were said to have left that cottage merely days after Apple had been taken away.

Upon nearly reaching the delicate casket however, something became even more suspicious.

"Apple...I... I there is someone lying in your coffin." He said after halting his horse.

She glanced at him, confused, and then the two of them leapt off the horse to rush over and see.

Apple was the first to reach the glass encased bed of death, and her heart stilled.

It...was him!

She knelt down, partially in shock, and partially to get a closer look at this bizarre discovery.

His face was contorted as if in pain, and his face was stained with tear streaks, almost like they were fresh. The color was gone from his face and his hands, which almost rivalled her own now in pallor, and his fiery hair was still combed in the way he always had it.

His one hand was clenched in a fist over his heart, while the other lay tucked under his head. He was surely dead. Why and how he had gotten here was a mystery to her.

She reached out tenderly to remove a stray hair from his face, and her fingertips stung at the coldness of his skin.

She yelled and jumped back as his eyes shot suddenly open at her touch, his unnervingly icy blue eyes penetrating her soul, with a look of what could on,y be described as agony...such heavy, heartfelt, genuine agony...laced inside the intricately veined irises that she struggle to tear away from.

He...he had bee mourning her? Could it be? That he regretted is actions so, that he would waste away upon her coffin bed, and die himself?

A hand upon her shoulder startled her out of her morbid imaginings and she looked up at her husband, with relief.

"Who is he?" Fergus asked, completely unaware of the vast difference between his own, and his wife's discomfort and horror.

Apple simply looked away and whispered, "Just somebody I used to know..." She choked out.

And with that she leaned forward, gingerly...shaking...and she placed a terrified but remorseful kiss upon his lips.

Under her kiss he began to disintegrate and little flecks of him flew away, forming into feathers that danced, gracefully with the wind.

Her husband eyed her in confusion, but said nothing more. Apple simply watched as every last feather flitted off and away, out of existence.

"Let's go somewhere else." She concluded as the last feathers flew up and away.

Taking his hand, she let him lead her to their horse and she tried not to look back.

She turned and looked behind her, at last, unable to contain her curiosity...and there perched on the edge of the coffin was a small black owl, with great big blue eyes. In the instant she saw it, it vanished into the shadows of the trees, and with him he took the curse of true but unrequited love; a side of the story no one would ever know about.

For whatever reason he was there, it was clear that now he was finally free. From that day on, she never thought of her story, or anyone else's the same way again.

XxXxX


End file.
